Issues in the management of dysphagia

Management of patients with dysphagia is a necessary part of our clinical intervention. Some areas of management include implementing dietary changes that the patient will accept and training caretakers to feed dependent patients safely and to provide oral care to dependent patients. The tube-fed patient has special needs in regard to quality of life and is at greater risk for pneumonia, requiring the effective skills of multiple disciplines to effectively manage this patient. The most successful dysphagia programs address these management concerns from a multidisciplinary perspective; the speech-language pathologist cannot function effectively as a sole provider.